The Atacama desert in Chile sits long and lean, sandwiched between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The desert’s extreme aridity makes it one of the clearest places on Earth to view the night sky and is famous for being home to the largest radio telescope in the world. But the usually barren landscape…
Shares of U.S. rare earth and critical mineral miners surged Thursday after China tightened restrictions on exports, fueling market speculation that the Trump administration will move more aggressively to invest in building out a domestic supply chain. Ramaco Resources soared more than 11%, Energy Fuels surged over 12%, USA Rare Earth jumped more than 16%,…
Cairo — A rare 4,000-year-old limestone relief has vanished from a tomb in Egypt’s famous Saqqara Necropolis, officials say, in the second major apparent theft of an antiquity in just weeks. The ancient artwork’s disappearance was reported over the weekend, just more than three weeks after officials confirmed that a golden bracelet stolen from the…
Shares of USA Rare Earth jumped in extended trading Thursday, after CEO Barbara Humpton told CNBC that the rare earth miner is “in close communication” with the White House. Humpton’s comment comes after the Trump administration took a 5% equity stake in Lithium Americas this week. The Defense Department took a 15% stake in rare…
A TV monitor displays a picture of Tyler Robinson, the suspected of killing Charlie Kirk on September 11, in Orem, Utah, on September 12, 2025. Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images As the search unfolded for conservative political activist Charlie Kirk’s assassin, with the suspect identified on Friday as Tyler Robinson, law enforcement…
South Africans will be treated to a rare celestial show on the evening of Sunday, 7 September, when the noon passes through Earth’s shadow in a total lunar eclipse. Astronomers say the event will be clearly visible across the country, with the moon taking on the characteristic deep red hue often referred to as a…
SpaceX’s Starlink suffered one of its biggest international outages on Thursday when an internal software failure knocked users offline, a rare disruption for Elon Musk’s powerful satellite internet system. Users in the US and Europe began experiencing the outage at around 9pm SAST, according to Downdetector, a crowdsourced outage tracker. Starlink, which has more than…
The Defense Department will become the largest shareholder in rare earth miner MP Materials after agreeing to buy $400 million of its preferred stock, the company said Thursday. MP Materials owns the only operational rare earth mine in the U.S. at Mountain Pass, California, about 60 miles outside Las Vegas. Proceeds from the Pentagon investment…
A mining machine is seen at the Bayan Obo mine containing rare earth minerals, in Inner Mongolia, China. China Stringer Network | Reuters In April 2025, China imposed new export controls on seven rare earth elements and the permanent magnets derived from them — materials that form the foundation of modern life and modern warfare….
